Ain't Gonna Face No Defeat
by nicnac918
Summary: On his eleventh birthday, Warlock does not get a hell hound. Instead he receives a tiny grey kitten he names Sister Cat. Three days later, they help avert the Apocalypse. As one does.
1. Chapter 1

What it came down to is this: Warlock was a cat person.

This might be in part attributed to his childhood nanny, though Nanny Ashtoreth wasn't a cat person so much as she was an anti-dog person. "Nasty, slobbering, stupid animals," Nanny would say. "You must never get a dog, Warlock. And if you ever see a stray, you mustn't name it." And Warlock would nod and solemnly agree.

That might have contributed to it, but the reality probably was Warlock was a cat person simply because he liked cats. No particular reason for it. It's ineffable, really.

Thaddeus and Harriet Dowling were not cat people. This didn't bother Warlock all that much. He liked cats, but he didn't want a pet cat particularly. He already had Brother Snail and Sister Slug and whole flocks of birds that would eat straight out of his hands if Brother Francis put the seed there and all the other creatures in the garden. One time Warlock spotted Brother Fox hiding in the bushes; Brother Francis had coaxed him out, and Warlock got to pet him for a full five minutes before Brother Fox decided he was ready to be on his way.

The first time this came to a bit of a head was one week after Warlock's eighth birthday. Tad, Harriet and Warlock were having a family birthday dinner to make up for Tad and Harriet having been out of town on Warlock's actual birthday. On the whole Warlock was finding it to be vastly inferior to said actual birthday, where he had climbed to the very top of every tree in the garden under Brother Francis's supervision and had been given cake for every meal by Nanny.

Warlock had just finished his last bite of belated birthday cake – which admittedly had tasted just as good as the cake on his actual birthday, even if cake for dessert was much less impressive than cake for breakfast – when Tad clapped his hands together and smiled. "We've got a big surprise for you Warlock, to make up for missing your birthday. We've decided it's time you got your very own dog. A Lab, a Golden Retriever, whatever kind you like." It was understood that "whatever kind you like" included things like Labs and Golden Retrievers or Collies or German Shepherds or even a Doberman Pinscher or a Pitbull. It did not include things like Chihuahuas or Pomeranians or any kind of dog that was small and yappy and, worst of all, girly. "But if we get you a puppy you're going to have to be responsible for taking care of it."

"I won't," Warlock replied promptly.

"You _won't_?" Tad said disbelievingly. "Now you listen here, young man-"

"Oh for Christ's sake Tad," Harriet interrupted. "He just means he doesn't want a dog. We can get you something else. Some tropical fish maybe?" Thaddeus Dowling might be a dog person, but Harriet Dowling didn't care for pets at all. She found them to be messy and loud and in constant need of care and attention, even when one finds it inconvenient. Much of the same could be said of children, something she unfortunately hadn't realized until after she'd had one of her own. Harriet did like tropical fish however, primarily because she thought of them less as pets and more as exotic living artwork.

"I don't want fish," Warlock said. He had a very similar opinion on tropical fish to his mother, except as an eight-year-old boy he found the idea of exotic living art significantly less appealing than she did.

"Then what do you want?" Tad asked.

Warlock considered. All he really wanted at the moment was to be excused so he could go play in his room. He doubted that answer would go over well. "A bike," he said instead.

Tad was pleased by Warlock's choice. "You're absolutely right; it's past time I taught you how to ride a bike. We'll get you the best bike on the market, son."

The promised bike arrived two days later. A day after that, Tad left town again for business. Harriet didn't go with him this time, but saying she was still present at the estate might be overstating the matter. Instead Brother Francis taught Warlock to ride his new "velocipede" while Nanny watched them from the porch and sipped on a glass of wine while offering constructive criticism.

The second time the subject of pets got brought up, it was far less civil. Warlock was standing in the entry hall, his face red and blotchy, his eyes watery and bloodshot, and his throat painfully sore from screaming for over an hour now. The first fifteen minutes of that had been spent clinging to Nanny's skirts begging her not to go, despite knowing full well it wasn't her choosing to leave. After she had been bustled out, Warlock screamed at his parents for another ten minutes demanding they bring her back. At first they tried to reason with him, explaining why he was not allowed to have this thing he wanted. As anyone who has attempted to reason with a distraught ten year old can attest, this was venture doomed to failure. Eventually they left the room in the vague notion of letting him cry himself out. Warlock continued to scream at the universe at large for another forty-five minutes. Shortly before dinnertime Tad returned, determined to sort Warlock out. He threatened Warlock with no dessert, then no dinner, then with taking away his Xbox – Warlock did not have an Xbox of any kind, but the general sentiment of the threat was understood – all to no avail.

Eventually Tad broke down and said, "For god's sake Warlock, she's just a damned nanny. If you need something to love that badly, I'll get you a fucking dog."

That finally stopped Warlock's screaming. This was not, as Tad initially assumed, a good thing. "I don't want a dog," Warlock hissed venomously. "If you get me a dog, I will crush it beneath my boot heel and tear it to bloody pieces."

Tad was momentarily taken aback. "Listen to yourself, son. It's a good thing we got rid of that nanny if that's the kind of thing she's been teaching you. You just threatened to kill an innocent dog."

At this Warlock stood stock-still for a moment and went dreadfully pale. Then he pushed his way past his father and outside to the garden. Tucked away in the corner was the little cottage where Brother Francis stayed. Warlock burst in the front door and found what he most feared: the place was empty.

Not truly empty, mind. Most of the furniture in the cottage had been there long before Brother Francis had arrived, and it was all still there. But everything that Brother Francis had brought with him – the little antiques, the throw pillows and tartan blanket, the dozens and dozens of books – were gone. All that was left was an envelope on the table with Warlock's name in copperplate script.

Warlock screamed yet again. He grabbed the letter off the table and ran inside to the dining room where there was a fire blazing away in the fireplace. Warlock tore the letter in half, then quarters, then threw it into the fire. As soon as the flames began to lick the paper, Warlock let out a cry of loss and tried to pull the pieces out again. The maid, who had up until this point been setting the table and trying very hard to pretend she wasn't there, quickly grabbed Warlock and held him until the letter was gone completely. As soon as she let go, Warlock ran back to his room and cried himself to sleep.

The next morning Harriet came to wake Warlock up. She looked down her nose at him and said, "Are you done throwing your little tantrum now?"

Warlock looked her straight in the eyes and said, quite calmly, "No."

The third time it was Warlock himself who brought the subject up. He waited until his father was out – not difficult – and his mother was home and available – rather more difficult. Warlock had spent the past year in a drawn-out, slow simmer tantrum, but when he sat down in the drawing room across from his mother he was perfectly contained and polite.

Harriet set her romance novel down and eyed him with suspicion, which was honestly a completely reasonable reaction. Warlock was indeed Up To Something. "What is it now?" she asked.

"I want a cat for my birthday," Warlock said. His birthday was two weeks away, and he had so far demanded a lot of very expensive things for both presents and the party itself. This, however, was the first one he really cared about. Ever since Brother Francis left, the animals in the garden hadn't been nearly as numerous or friendly, and Warlock knew a cat couldn't tuck him into bed and read him a story, but he thought it might be persuaded to cuddle up next to him on the pillow and purr.

"A cat," Harriet echoed flatly. Cats were only slightly less objectionable than dogs in her opinion. And Warlock hardly struck her as loving pet owner, largely because she didn't have much of impression of Warlock at all outside of those occasions when she needed to Deal With Him.

"A cat," Warlock agreed. "I want a girl kitten that's slim, and ladylike and dignified." He also wanted his kitten to be black with a streak of mischief, but he decided to keep that part to himself. He knew who he was describing, but he also knew who his mother _thought_ he was describing, and he thought it in his best interest to keep it that way. That's why he hadn't asked for the other kind of cat he wanted, a large scruffy friendly kitten, with long tan fur.

"I don't know," Harriet said, still reluctant, but rather charmed that Warlock wanted a cat that reminded him of her.

"Please, mom?" Warlock said. "I promise to take care of her. I'll feed her and water her and clean out her litter box every day."

This struck Harriet as being just a bit too earnest, and she eyed Warlock with suspicion all over again. "You know your father and I have had just about enough of your carrying on lately. If we get you this cat, then you better start behaving better."

"I will, I promise," he agreed readily. What Warlock knew, and what Harriet should have known but perhaps hadn't thought of, was better behaviour was not the same thing as good behaviour.

"Okay," Harriet said, already picking her book back up, "we'll get you the cat."

As promised, Warlock received a kitten shortly before his eleventh birthday party, and she was in Warlock's estimation completely lovely and perfect. Sister Cat, as Warlock had named her largely because it never occurred to him he could name her anything else, was not a black kitten like he had wanted. She was soft grey with bright green eyes and a tiny pink mouth that showed whenever she mewed. A Russian Blue, Harriet had told him; a very nice cat, though they might have gotten him something nicer if he had given them more than two weeks' notice. By nice, Harriet meant expensive, as she often did. None of which Warlock cared about. All that mattered to him was when he had picked Sister Cat up for the first time, she had cuddled into him and began purring straight away.

Warlock held her all through his birthday party, paying very little attention to the festivities that had been arranged. Really, he hadn't even wanted a magician in the first place; Sister Cat was much more interesting.

At precisely 3:02 in the afternoon at Warlock's birthday party on the Wednesday before the End of the World, three things happened at exactly the same time. The first was the waiter with sunglasses and bright red hair looked away from Warlock and off into the distance, as if impatiently anticipating something's arrival. The second was Trixie, who had been in a foul mood ever since Warlock refused to let her hold his new kitten, threw a cupcake, causing the magician to look away from Warlock and down at the frosting now covering his lapel. And the third was Sister Cat, who was actually quite shy, decided that as fond as she was of Warlock, she did not care for all the crowds of people around him right now, and ran off to find somewhere quiet and alone. The result of these three things was Warlock running out of the party - area after Sister Cat, completely unobserved by the two supernatural beings that had come with the express purpose of observing him.

Warlock made it as far as the drive before he stopped dead in his tracks. Sitting there, a little off to the side, in the same place it had always parked, was Nanny's car. Nanny and Brother Francis had come to see him.

It should be noted at this point Warlock's assumption that Nanny's car meant Brother Francis had returned as well was not an unreasonable one from his point of view. As far as Warlock was concerned, Nanny and Brother Francis were married or as good as. Had they been asked Crowley and Aziraphale, those being the names Nanny and Brother Francis more typically went by, would have denied this supposition. Crowley would have instead called them friends, or possibly best friends if he were feeling particularly bold that day. Aziraphale would have, after a good deal of fretful sputtering, supplied a nonsensical term like companionable adversaries. Of the three of them, Warlock probably had the right of it.

Warlock might have run back to the party that very second to look for Nanny and Brother Francis, but he had to find Sister Cat first. He peered underneath Nanny's car, and luckily there she was, though Warlock had to walk around to the front of the car to be able to reach her. He was just scooping her up when he heard two people coming from the direction of the party.

"It was all a bit of a disaster, I'm afraid," said the first one. Warlock thought he was the magician. That would make sense. Even though Warlock hadn't really been paying attention, he'd got the impression the magician had been a bit rubbish.

"Nonsense. You gave them all a party to remember. Last one any of them will ever have, mind," the other person answered, and Warlock once again froze. That was _Nanny's_ voice. The accent was all wrong, but it was definitely Nanny's voice. It had to be Nanny, because she was opening the door and getting in the driver's seat of Nanny's car, and Nanny would never let anyone else drive her car. (Warlock had asked once if he might be allowed to drive it once he was old enough. Nanny's expression had gone very tight, and she had said, "We'll see.")

If the second person was Nanny, then the magician had to be Brother Francis in disguise. Warlock could understand why they might have had to come to his birthday in disguise after being let go, but he didn't know why they wouldn't have told him they were there. Warlock was very good at keeping secrets, if for the rather unfortunate reason he had no one really to tell secrets to. The other possibility that occurred to Warlock was he had been meant to figure out the disguises on his own and he had failed. That caused a very unpleasant feeling to coil in his gut.

Warlock's bout of surprise was cut off by a whole new bout of surprise when the radio suddenly fizzed and crackled then started talking directly to Nanny. "Hello, Crowley."

"Uh, hi. Who's this?" Nanny answered. That confused Warlock because Nanny's name wasn't Crowley at all. Then it occurred to him perhaps Nanny's name really was Crowley. Perhaps the reason for the disguises and their sudden leaving a year ago and all the other odd things Warlock had noticed over the years was Nanny and Brother Francis were aliases and the two of them were actually spies.

Imagine for a moment you are putting together a jigsaw puzzle. You've already finished all the easy bits. You've done the corners and the edges. You've done all the grass and the trees and flowers and whatnot. You've finished the tire swing with the five children playing on it. You've completed the picnic with the tartan blanket where what appears to be the children's dramatic goth uncle sits with his stodgy English professor husband. You've even put together the little grey kitten playing with a black and white terrier who must have caught the light just wrong when the picture was taken as his eyes are an alarming shade of red. All that's left is a vast expanse of clear blue sky. It's a lot of sky, without any sort of clouds or sun or flying mopeds to differentiate it, to the point you're beginning to wonder if the creator of the puzzle wasn't a tad bit sadistic. (She isn't, She's mysterious, but it can be easy to get those two confused.) There is one sky piece you've found that's shape has an odd sort of squiggle on the side of it. It's such a strange piece it feels like it should be very easy to find were it goes. Despite that, you've been hanging onto this piece for a good long while now. Finally you see a spot that has an odd sort of inverse squiggle and you place your piece there. You have to push unusually hard to get the piece in the space, and once it's there you can tell the blues aren't quite the same shade. You go on with the puzzle anyway, pretending you've found where the piece goes even though deep down you know you'll have to move it eventually.

That was precisely how Warlock felt when he decided Nanny Crowley and Brother Francis must be spies.

"Dagon, Lord of the Files, Master of Torments," the radio said.

"Yeah, just checking in about the hell hound," Nanny Crowley said. Warlock, who was still desperately trying to believe in his spies theory, decided hell hound must be code for something.

"He should be with you by now. Why? Has something gone wrong, Crowley?" said the radio.

"Wrong? No, no. Nothing's wrong. What could be wrong? Oh, no, I see him now, yes. What a lovely, big hell-y hell hound. Yes, Okay, great talking to you," Nanny Crowley said before quickly turning the radio off.

That was a lie. Nanny Crowley had just lied. Of course, that wasn't surprising, but she had lied so badly. If Warlock had ever lied that badly, Nanny Crowley would have lectured him for it.

"No dog," Brother Francis said after a moment.

"No dog," Nanny Crowley echoed.

"Wrong boy."

"Wrong boy."

"So is that it? The world's going to end?" Brother Francis said.

"Don't say that, angel. We just have to…"

"To what?"

"Do something," Nanny Crowley said a bit wildly. "Starting with going back to the shop and getting a stiff drink." She pulled her door closed, and Warlock only just scrambled out of the way before the car went speeding off.

Warlock watched it until it disappeared, which didn't take long with how fast Nanny Crowley liked to drive. Then he held Sister Cat up in the air in front of him so he could look her in the eye. "Sister Cat, that was Nanny and Brother Francis."

Sister Cat blinked slowly. Warlock took that for agreement.

"That was Nanny and Brother Francis, and the two of them are, I think they're, they're…." Warlock hesitated to say it, haunted by the ominous feeling that if he said it out loud, then it would be true. That wasn't the case at all, of course. As Crowley and Aziraphale had just discovered, Warlock wasn't the Antichrist, but more-or-less regular human boy with no occult ability to shape reality to his whim whatsoever.

Warlock took a deep breath and said, "Nanny and Brother Francis are a demon and an angel." While this declaration had no effect on actual reality, it did make it feel real to Warlock. Surprisingly, this wasn't distressing in the slightest. To return to an earlier metaphor, it felt like after having that squiggly sky piece in hand for hours and hours and trying it in dozens of different spots, finally sliding it into the right space with a satisfying _shunk_.

"They also said somebody's going to try to destroy the world. Somebody else, that is." This did not sit well with Warlock at all. He'd always been told he was going to be the one with the power to destroy the world. He felt this worked out well, because it meant all he had to do was choose not to do that, and everything would be fine. But he couldn't trust that someone else would make that decision.

"We'll just have to help Nanny and Brother Francis stop them, whoever it is," Warlock declared.

Sister Cat closed her eyes and began purring. Warlock took that for agreement too.


	2. Chapter 2

Warlock was very determined to help prevent the end of the world. He really rather liked the world on the whole. The world was where all his favourite things were – baseball and his action figures, banana-flavoured gum and video games, comics and cartoons and his BMX bike. The world was where Warlock lived, and where Sister Cat lived, and he wasn't entirely sure if Nanny Crowley and Brother Francis lived on the world anymore, they had lived there once and might be persuaded to do so again provided the whole thing didn't end. There was also a sense of personal affront at the idea of anyone besides him ending the world. Warlock felt he had a proprietary interest in the matter and even if he hadn't wanted to world not to end for other reasons, he felt obligated to put a stop to the whole thing on principle.

So yes, Warlock was very much determined to help prevent the end of the word. There was just one problem. Just the one, which Warlock thought wasn't bad at all, even though if pressed he'd admit it was a fairly large problem. He had no idea what he was actually supposed to do.

The trouble was, while Warlock knew someone was going to try to end the world, he didn't know who. He didn't how. He didn't know where or why or when, aside from that last one being probably fairly soon. Really, the only thing Warlock did know was Nanny Crowley and Brother Francis knew what was going on. Or at least, Warlock thought they knew what was going on, even if someone rather more astute than the average eleven-year-old boy probably would have picked on the fact that Crowley and Aziraphale were flailing about with only slightly more to go on than Warlock did. But the important thing was Warlock believed they knew, and therefor concluded the best way for him to help was to track them down first.

This presented an entirely new problem. Warlock had no idea where Nanny Crowley and Brother Francis could have gone. He'd already tried going through all his parent's things to find some sort of contact information a year ago. Warlock had thought at the time that if Nanny Crowley and Brother Francis weren't allowed to stay with him at the estate anymore, then he would just figure out where they lived and go stay with them instead. Really, that was still his plan, just with saving the world thrown in there as a little addendum.

The good news for Warlock was that while the Dowling's employment records might be miraculously blank with regards to their previous nanny and gardener, he did have two helpful bits of information he hadn't the last time he'd tried to find the two. The first was Brother Francis and Nanny Crowley were an angel and a demon respectively. The second was the two of them had a shop somewhere within driving distance. Those gave way to two new options: either go online and track down this shop or go online and figure out how to summon a demon.

This might bring up some rather alarming images of an eleven year old summoning a demon and getting burned alive or swallowed whole or having his soul ripped to shreds. Don't fret. Warlock is unusually well-versed in occult matters – not surprising as he'd had a demon for a nanny – and if he were to summon a demon, he would almost certainly summon the one he intended. Crowley would never hurt Warlock, physically or metaphysically, though he would give the boy a good long lecture about why one doesn't go around summoning demons. Primarily because demons tend to become rather cranky and unhelpful at having their day interrupted and you're usually better of dealing out whatever death and destruction you wanted yourself. Furthermore, if Warlock were to summon a demon other than Crowley, he still would have been fine. It's important to remember that at the present moment every demon aside from Crowley believes Warlock is the Antichrist. The result would have been a rather star-struck demon gladly performing his master's bidding of fetching the demon Crowley, then shyly asking for an autograph or a selfie before returning to Hell to prepare for the upcoming War. If Warlock were to summon a demon.

In addition to being unusually well-versed in the occult, Warlock is also unusually good at distinguishing reputable sources on the internet from those that aren't for an eleven year old. He's unusually good at it for a person of any age, really. This wasn't something intentional he had learned, but rather something he'd picked up as a side-effect of Nanny's lessons in how to trick and deceive people on the internet. Still, it was a very useful skill to have. With it, after searching through the web for the entire rest of Wednesday and all Thursday morning, Warlock was able to come to the accurate conclusion there were no reputable sources on demon summoning anywhere on the internet.

In fact, with the exception of a single dense tome in the backroom of a bookshop in Soho, there were no reputable sources on demon summoning anywhere on Earth, and there hadn't been since 1592. Eight years prior to that, Crowley had had a very pleasant evening interrupted and decided he'd had enough of this whole summoning business. He'd spent three years tracking down and destroying every single slightly accurate reference to demon summoning, and received a commendation for his work once it was done. Aziraphale, who had been with Crowley on the pleasant evening in question during 1587, had smiled and congratulated Crowley. He'd then spent the next five years tracking down all the more obscure references Crowley, who was far less familiar with the world of the written word than Aziraphale, had missed. Aziraphale had also received a commendation for his work, though he'd kept it from Crowley so as to not hurt his ego.

After deciding he wasn't going to be able to do a demon summoning, Warlock briefly considered a slightly more usual sort of occult summoning. A séance of some sort. He ended up not doing it, feeling like he already wasted too much time on not actually real demon summoning, so other types of summoning would probably be a waste too. He'd keep it as a Plan B.

Instead Warlock began trying to track down this mysterious shop. He spent the rest of the day Thursday and all day Friday searching the internet for clues. As to be expected of the internet, especially when Warlock had so little to go on, most of what he found was largely useless, if occasionally interesting. He particularly liked this one theory that said Nanny Crowley had been the serpent in the Garden of Eden – Warlock thought the serpent seemed like the good guy in that story and it sure sounded like the kind of thing Nanny Crowley would do. Of course, the part where that meant Nanny Crowley was actually Satan was rubbish; she had been talking to her boss on the radio the other day, and the devil didn't have a boss. Besides the devil was evil, but Nanny Crowley was just… bad. But in a good way. Still, as interesting as all that was, it didn't get Warlock any closer to finding the shop.

Eventually, cutting out all the extraneous useless bits, Warlock's train of searching went like this. The demon Crowley led his mortal enemy the angel Aziraphale. Ignoring the mortal enemies bit, since it was obviously written by someone deeply religious and also with no imagination who assumed demons and angels had to be enemies, rather than married people who sometimes had spats like proper married people did, the angel Aziraphale was obviously Brother Francis. The angel Aziraphale was also a protector of books and scrolls and the written word – with the exception of all those books on demon summoning he'd collected and then smote with only a little regret. The books finally led Warlock to a bookshop in Soho, A.Z. Fell & Co.

Once he'd found the shop, Warlock moved away from reputable sources and started looking into it on social media sites. The shop itself didn't have any sort of social media presence, but would make sense because Brother Aziraphale was very old-fashioned. There were a fair number of people who talked about the shop online though. Warlock learned the shop had been opened over two hundred years ago by A.Z. Fell and was still owned and run today by A.Z. Fell. Possibly the same immortal, ageless A.Z. Fell. He learned the shop had erratic opening hours, and those hours had increased significantly a year ago, at the same time Brother Francis and Nanny had left. There was even one mention of A.Z. Fell's husband, with dark clothing and bright red hair and sunglasses on indoors. Warlock had always assumed Nanny was Brother Francis's wife, but Nanny Crowley was a demon, so he supposed there was no reason she couldn't also be a boy if she wanted to.

Warlock was reasonably certain A.Z. Fell & Co. was the right shop, but he wasn't completely certain. He wanted to be completely certain before he tried visiting the place. He found a thread that had been updated fairly recently and typed up a post of his own: "i think i might have been to this shop before when i was in london on holiday. what does the owner look like? (pics if you have them i'm rubbish at faces unless i can actually see them)." He considered the comment for a moment, then changed the words shop, holiday, and rubbish to store, vacation, and terrible to make it sound properly like an American tourist before posting. Then, because it would probably be a little before he got a reply, and it was getting late, and Nanny had always said you had to be well-rested to destroy the world which Warlock assumed applied to saving it too, he crawled in bed and went to sleep. Sister Cat curled up in the curve of his neck, and the both of them slept very well.

Warlock woke up early the next morning, tremendously early really, considering he was an eleven-year-old boy and it was a Saturday during summer holidays. He made sure there was fresh food and water in Sister Cat's bowls, then started up his computer. There were two new post on the thread.

The first wasn't very helpful. It assured Warlock he would remember Mr. Fell and his death glare if he had ever seen it, and went on to describe said death glare in very poetic terms. The trouble was, Warlock had never seen Brother Francis give a death glare. He'd seen annoyed and angry and exasperated, but even when he and Nanny had had fights – which they only rarely did in front of Warlock – or when Warlock had misbehaved very, very badly, Brother Francis had always looked a little fond.

The second post was much better. It read, "Fell's not all bad. He's can be very nice if he doesn't think you've come to steal one of his bookbabies (by steal I mean buy). Plus look at how soft he is for his feccking huge snek boi." Below that was a picture. The focus of the picture was the feccking huge snek boi which was, as promised, feccking huge. It had glossy black scales and a red underbelly and an amber yellow eye. A.Z. Fell was standing near the edge of the frame behind the snake, looking down at it. Warlock thought he might look a little like Brother Francis, if Brother Francis fixed his teeth and trimmed off a lot of hair and started wearing sufficient sunscreen and moisturizing. What really convinced Warlock was the expression on his face. He was looking at the snake the exact same way Brother Francis used to look at Nanny, which made sense as Warlock was pretty sure the snake was Nanny Crowley. (If she could be a girl and a demon and a boy, no reason she couldn't be a snake too.)

It was as Warlock was coming to the conclusion that A.Z. Fell & Co was the mysterious shop that his door burst open. Thaddeus Dowling was standing in the doorway, looking annoyed and angry and exasperated and, if we are being completely honest, not the least bit fond. "What are you doing, son?" he demanded.

Warlock looked down at himself. He was in his pyjamas, sitting at his desk. One hand was on his computer mouse while the other was holding the tail of a toy mouse, dangling it in the air for Sister Cat to play with. He thought it was fairly reasonable Saturday morning behaviour. Good behaviour even.

"Your mother told you last night you needed to be packed up and ready to go this morning," Tad said.

"No she didn't," Warlock retorted.

In fairness to Tad, Warlock would have said that regardless of what Harriet had or hadn't done, so he could not be entirely blamed for assuming Warlock was lying, even if he wasn't in this particular instance. "Yes she did. Now hurry up and get dressed and packed. We're leaving for Israel in 15 minutes."

"I'm not going." This too was an automatic response, but once Warlock realized what Tad had just said he repeated with extra emphasis, "I'm _not_." He couldn't leave the country when he was supposed to be helping Nanny Crowley and Brother Aziraphale save the world.

"Yes, you are," Tad said. "Now stop playing with your cat and let's go."

"I'm not going unless I can bring Sister Cat," Warlock said, knowing full well what the answer to that would be.

"You can't bring your cat with us on an international trip. The staff will take care of her, and you can see her when you get back."

"I'm not going without Sister Cat," Warlock insisted.

"Yes, you are. The deal when we got you that cat was you would start behaving better. So you are going to go on this trip, you're going to leave the cat behind, and you are going to behave yourself."

"I have been behaving myself, all week," Warlock said. "And now you're trying to take Sister Cat away from me." He scooped the kitten up and held her close to his chest, as though he were afraid Tad might try to physically tear her away.

"We are not taking her away from you. It's an international trip-"

"You are," Warlock said, not quite screaming, but making it clear that option was on the table. "You're taking her away from me. She's the only thing in this house I love, and you're taking her away from me just like you take away everything I love!"

There had been a fair bit of wiling and tempting and other demonic intervention involved in making sure the Dowlings brought Warlock to the Fields of Megiddo at the appointed hour. One such was a compulsion that had been laid on Thaddeus Dowling, to make him agree to this sudden proposed photo op, and to bring his son along with him. Still, demonic compulsions can only go so far; they can't overcome free will. That is rather the point of this whole human thing, after all. Had Warlock been agreeable or apathetic or even his normal level of sullenly disinclined to the proposed trip, Tad would have successfully forced him to go. But not even all the forces of Hell and Satan himself could compel Tad to subject himself to one of Warlock's screaming fits. "I don't have time for this. Fine, you can stay and see how you like being home all alone."

Warlock, being one of the few people who understood getting the last word was not the same thing as winning the argument, refrained from pointing out he'd already had ample opportunity in the last year to decide he didn't like being left home alone in the slightest. Instead he gave Tad a mild look designed to annoy without actually offering any concrete misbehaviour he could be punished for and waited. After a few moments Tad left with a huff of disgust and went to yell at Harriet. The two of them yelled at each other, rushed around to finish getting ready, and left the estate fourteen minutes later. Warlock waited another ten minutes after that, then got up, got dressed, and began packing.

He got out his large messenger bag and began filling it. He was very careful in making sure he picked out only his most favourite toys and books and games, the ones he really couldn't live without. He picked out Sister Cat's two favourite toys – the fake mouse and the wand with a clump of feathers on a string at the end – and put them in the bag too. "We can get more things later," he explained to her as he packed the two toys away. "We only have so much space right now." Sister Cat cocked her head at him, then went back to playing with her third favourite toy – the hollow ball with a bell inside it.

Next Warlock went down to the kitchen and got some snacks for himself. He also went ahead and ate an early lunch, to keep himself from getting too hungry while he was traveling. On his way back up to his room he stopped by Tad's study and grabbed some of the money stashed inside the desk drawer. Much more money than Warlock thought he could possibly need for his trip, just to be safe, but not so much that Tad was liable to notice it was missing.

Back in his room, Warlock packed the snacks for himself and added a bag of food for Sister Cat as well. The last thing he added was some of his clothes. He didn't actually care about any of the clothes themselves, but he did think they made nice padding for the little hollow space he'd left on one side of the bag.

That left only one thing to do. Warlock picked up Sister Cat and, with a fair amount of struggling, got her into her harness. He grabbed her leash and secured it to the strap of his bag. When he turned back to Sister Cat, she was rolling around on the floor, trying to get the harness off. He scooped her up and held her in one hand while gripping the scruff of her neck in the other. "No," he told her firmly. "You have to wear your harness and your leash, so you don't get lost while we're in London." He clipped the leash to her harness, stuck her in the hollow space he'd left, and closed the flap of the bag. Sister Cat made a "mmrph" noise to express her displeasure at the harness, then curled up in the very cosy space and went to sleep.

Warlock took one last look around the room to make sure he hadn't missed anything. He picked his bag up, being careful not to disturb Sister Cat, and put it on. He arranged it so if Sister Cat decided to stick her head out, she could see where they were going. Then he walked out of his room, through the front door, down the drive, and left.

Warlock's plan was very simple. He was going to walk to the bus stop. He would take the bus to the Tube station. He would take the Tube to Soho. Then he would walk to A.Z. Fell & Co. Unfortunately for Warlock, he had never had to take public transportation before, and it turned out he was really actually very bad at it. He took the wrong bus at the bus stop, and once he'd finally managed to sort that out and get to the Underground, he took the wrong train, twice. Eventually he got to Soho, at which point he could at least rely on his phone's GPS to direct him to the bookshop. When he arrived, and this at least Warlock was certain couldn't be blamed on his poor public transportation skills, the bookshop was on fire.

Warlock looked around at all the people crowded watching the place burn down, but he didn't see Brother Aziraphale or Nanny Crowley anywhere. What Warlock didn't know was he had only missed Crowley's departure from the burning shop by the barest of seconds. Given what was to come, and the fragility of the human body to things like being completely engulfed in Hellfire, it was probably just as well he had.

Warlock patted his bag. "Don't worry, Sister Cat. Brother Aziraphale would never let anything happen to his books, and Nanny Crowley would never let anything happen that would make Brother Aziraphale sad. They must have been somewhere else when the fire started. They're fine." Surprisingly, this was not something Warlock was saying just to comfort himself. He believed it; he had faith in Brother Aziraphale and Nanny Crowley. One might even call it Faith, born not just of blind love, but of deep knowledge and understanding. Aziraphale and Crowley both would have been proud of him.

He looked at his phone for a few minutes, then set off again. He still had a Plan B to try. Madame Tracy was due to part the veil in less than an hour, and more importantly she was within walking distance.


	3. Chapter 3

There was a knock on the front door to the building just as Madame Tracy was getting her group for that afternoon's parting of the veil settled. As Mr. Shadwell couldn't be counted on to answer the door even when he wasn't passed out from shock on Madame Tracy's bed, she excused herself for a moment to check who it was.

It was Warlock, of course. He was standing in the doorway with the full confidence of someone who knew what they were doing was of vital importance, as well as the confidence of someone who'd been told ever since he could remember that one day he'd grow up with the power to crush armies under his boot heel. The latter kind of confidence could very easily shade into arrogance, but Warlock was a good boy at heart, and managed to walk the line most days.

Most of the time that kind of confidence is a good thing. Enough confidence and you can convince people to go along with whatever you say because you certainly sound like you know what you're doing. Enough confidence and you can even convince yourself you know what you're doing, even when you very much do not. Unfortunately, this was not one of those times. In Madame Tracy's experience the children that came actually wanting to talk to the departed were generally sad and uncertain. The confident ones were only ever there to take the mick.

"Can I help you?" she said in the sternest voice she used outside of her sessions of strict discipline and intimate massage. Warlock, having grown up with Thaddeus and Harriet Dowling, and a demon for a nanny, didn't particularly notice.

"I was hoping to join the séance for this afternoon. The people I want to contact aren't dead, but they aren't human either, so I thought it might work."

That answer only heightened Madame Tracy's suspicions. She was just about to tell Warlock the session for today and all her sessions for the foreseeable future were full up, when a kitten stuck her head out of Warlock's bag and mewed. Madame Tracy wasn't a cat person especially – she was rather fond of rabbits, but she didn't have any room for a hutch in her flat and it didn't fit much with the aesthetics of either of her professions – but she did like cute things. And the little kitten was very cute.

Warlock gave Sister Cat a fond look and a scratch behind the ears before turning back to Madame Tracy. "And could I get some water for Sister Cat? And a bowl – I've brought some of her food with me."

Madame Tracy softened immediately as she looked the boy over again. He wasn't a hoodlum after all. Hoodlums didn't bring their cats around with them, and they certainly didn't bring their cats and cat food and a bag stuffed full of who knew what else. He wasn't a hoodlum; he was a runaway. As to who he was running away from and whether he should be taken back to them post-haste or kept as far away from them as possible, she didn't know. She'd sit him down after the session so the two of them could have a nice cuppa, and she'd get it out of him them.

"Of course dear; we were just about to start," she said, leading the boy in. Mrs. Ormerod kicked up a bit of a fuss about the late addition who would no doubt want to cut into her time with her Ron, but she was placated with the reassurance that Sister Cat, now chowing down quite voraciously in the corner, was good luck for the proceedings. So Warlock was folded in to the rest of the group as they began the séance, at which point he very quickly came to the disappointing conclusion Madame Tracy was a fake.

This was not entirely correct. Madame Tracy was in fact a fairly spiritually receptive person as far as such things went, and while she didn't like to use too many occult trappings in her work – her customers wanted to dabble in the occult, not be thrust up to their necks in it – the bits she did use she was sure to get right. In fact the only real reason Madame Tracy's séances were fake was she herself didn't actually believe in ghosts. She was reliably able to pull any wandering spirits to her when she sat down and called them, but since she didn't believe in them, they weren't able to do much of anything.

But while Madame Tracy didn't believe in ghosts, she did believe in what she was doing. It was just in her mind what she was doing was not calling on the spirits of the dead; she was providing comfort and closure to her customers. She was letting them know that Granddad really was quite happy on the other side and yes, of course Mom was proud of you dear. They were lies, but they were well-intentioned lies, lies told out of compassion and even love. That little bit of love was just the crack in the door a wandering angel spirit would need to force his way in.

Except Madame Tracy wasn't the only spiritually receptive person in the room. The boy sitting next to her hadn't been born receptive, but it would have been impossible for him to avoid becoming so, having grown up with a pair of ethereal and occult beings. What's more, while he didn't particularly believe in ghosts any more than Madame Tracy, he did believe in angels and demons, and quite fervently believed in one particular angel and demon. He was desperate to contact the two of them because he wanted to help save the world, but mostly because he loved them both very much. So when that particular angel's spirit found its way to Madame Tracy's flat, it should be no surprise whatsoever which body he was drawn to inhabit.

Warlock screamed. Or at least that was how the other occupants in the room would have described it, though truthfully the sound had a lot more in common with an elephant trumpeting. Lightning flashed and thunder crashed and Warlock began making strange noises and convulsing and panting.

"What's going on with this now?" Mrs. Ormerod demanded, quite put out. She'd been coming to Madame Tracy for seven years now and knew exactly how things were supposed to go. This was not it.

Madame Tracy, who up until less than a minute ago hadn't believed in spirits, said quite calmly, "Something real, I expect. Come on dears, I think we best get you lot out of here." She stood up and began ushering the other three out the door. Madame Tracy might not have been the smartest woman around, but she really was very adaptable.

By this time Warlock was feeling very strange indeed. Vague and fuzzy and distant. He was aware the room was empty now and it hadn't been before, but he couldn't seem to place when the change had happened. He was also aware something big must have happened, and right while he was supposed to be in the middle of doing something important, but he couldn't place what that had been either. The human brain is a marvellous thing really, right up there with The Great Barrier Reef and lazy Sunday afternoons and bumblebees, but it's only built to handle so much at once. Not to mention this was a good deal outside the realm of what was usually expected of Warlock's brain. It was no wonder he was confused.

He felt himself stand up and head toward the kitchen. There was a thought in his head, a distinctly not-Warlock thought, that he'd like a cup of tea to settle him as he figured out what to do next and how to get to Tadfield. His arm reached out and his hand grabbed hold of Madame Tracy's kettle, but he was beginning to think it wasn't him doing any of it at all. His head turned and he happened to catch a glimpse of himself in a mirror. Suddenly it all fell to place.

"Brother Francis!" Warlock cried out. In his delight he momentarily forgot all about Brother Aziraphale's real name.

"Warlock?" Aziraphale said, using Warlock's mouth to do it. He looked down at himself, or more accurately the body he was inhabiting. "Is that – this you? What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you and Nanny Crowley," Warlock answered. "What are you doing inside of me? I thought it was demons who possessed people, not angels."

"We're from the same stock originally," Aziraphale answered primly before doing a mental double take. "I am sorry did you say angels and demons? And Nanny _Crowley_?"

"Well, that is what you both are. Nanny is a demon named Crowley and you're an angel named Aziraphale, and the two of you are trying to stop the world from ending," Warlock replied reasonably. "I heard you talking at my birthday party and decided to come help."

"Oh," Aziraphale said.

Warlock got the sense Brother Aziraphale needed a chance to sort through all that, so he gave him a minute. Meanwhile Sister Cat had smelled the change in the room, and had come to give Warlock a good sniff. She needed to satisfy her curiosity and also make sure that whatever this change was it was safe for her person.

"That's the kitten from your party," Aziraphale observed.

"Yeah, I got her for my birthday," Warlock said. Sister Cat, having decided the new smell was Good, rolled onto her back for belly rubs. Warlock crouched down and gave her a few pets, then grabbed onto her belly and began shaking her a little. Sister Cat thought this was a great game and began playfully fighting back. "Her name is Sister Cat."

"You named her Sister Cat?" As odd as it was to feel your lips and your tongue moving only to have someone else's voice come out of your mouth, it was decidedly odder to have that voice sound choked with emotion when you weren't feeling emotional in the least.

"Yeah. What else would I call her?" Warlock asked.

"Oh my dear boy," Aziraphale said. "I don't know how we were ever worried about you."

Think of a hug. What happened next was nothing like that at all. Warlock could feel Brother Aziraphale in his body alongside him, but then he shifted and his angelic essence wrapped itself around Warlock's soul, engulfing him in light and warmth and memories and love. He could see – not the right word at all, but the closet we have available to us – Nanny Crowley saying "The boy's meant to name it. Um, Stalks-by-Night, Throat-Ripper, something like that." Warlock could see himself at all his worst moments – save for the ones in the past year. He saw himself throwing screaming tantrums, running through the house breaking things, ripping up the plants in the garden, all of that and more. But there were other images too, much stronger images. Warlock at his birthday party, lovingly doting on Sister Cat. Running through the garden laughing. Sitting quietly absorbed as Nanny told him a story. Watching in awe as Brother Robin ate straight out of his hands. Walking hand-in-hand with Nanny and Brother Francis and smiling as though there could be no better possible place in the entire world to be.

"Oh," Warlock said, collapsing to the ground. Angelic love is a very heady, overwhelming thing. And that's in the normal way of things, when it's broad and all-encompassing and rather remote. This was very specific angelic love focused for and on Warlock alone and applied directly to the source. Warlock sat on the ground with silent tears streaming down his cheeks, which was a remarkable show of composure really.

"Oh dear," Madame Tracy said, coming back in the room. She crouched down next to Warlock, but her hands fluttered somewhat pointlessly; she wasn't entirely certain if he was safe to touch at the moment. "I'm sorry it took so long to clear the rest of them out. The spirit hasn't hurt you, has he?"

"Madame, I would never hurt a child, and I would most certainly never hurt Warlock," Aziraphale said with a level of affronted dignity that can only be achieved by someone who knows they are lying. He managed to justify it to himself by claiming it wasn't an actual lie; he would never directly hurt a child, just perhaps indirectly plot their demise and only when the situation called for it. The actual truth, one that not even Aziraphale recognized about himself yet, was if it came down to the end of the entire world versus the life of a child, he would indeed be willing to pull the trigger, so to speak. That's what comes from broad, all-encompassing, rather remote angelic love. Unless that child was Warlock. Then, while Aziraphale would very much prefer the world didn't get destroyed, he would willing die protecting Warlock while the boy was actively in the process of destroying it. That's what comes from the other type of love that currently had Warlock sitting on the floor in tears.

"I'm alright," Warlock said. He wiped both his cheeks with the heel of his palm. He smiled, and while it was rather wavering, it was undeniably happy. "The spirit's Brother Aziraphale, one of the two people I was trying to find. See, look." Warlock got up and stood in front of the mirror. Instead of Warlock's reflection, Madame Tracy saw Aziraphale, who gave her a cheery wave in greeting.

"Well," Madame Tracy said. She looked back and forth between Warlock and the reflection of Aziraphale. "Well. I suppose I better make us all a nice cuppa, and the two of you can explain this all to me."

* * *

Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell woke up some time later feeling dazed and confused. His disorientation was not at all helped by the strange very girly boudoir, complete with a pile of stuffed animals and a pink whip, he'd woken up in. He stumbled out into the main room where he heard to voices talking to each other.

"So what exactly do you propose we do about this?" the Jezebel asked. By this Madame Tracy meant she wanted to know how she, Aziraphale, and Warlock were going to solve the problem of the imminent ending of the world.

"Given the circumstances we're both going to have to be extremely flexible," replied some southern pansy. By this Aziraphale meant he and Warlock were both going to need to work together cooperatively to successfully navigate their current body-sharing situation. He was then going to go on to say something along the lines of needing Madame Tracy's assistance in getting to Tadfield – neither Aziraphale nor Warlock could drive, and public transportation was both far too slow at this point and something Aziraphale was only slightly better at than Warlock – but that was when Shadwell interrupted.

"Get your hands off her, you…" he began quite threateningly, only to trail off when he came around the corner and found only the Jezebel sitting with a young boy who couldn't possibly have been the one speaking a moment ago. "Where is he?"

"Who?" Madame Tracy asked.

"Some southern pansy," Shadwell answered. "I heard him, making lewd suggestions."

Aziraphale sat up straighter in Warlock's body and said, "Not just 'a' southern pansy, Sergeant. _The_ southern pansy."

"Does that mean Nanny really is a boy now?" Warlock asked, which was such an apparent non sequitur that it actually managed to momentarily confound Shadwell's accusations of demonry and witchcraft.

"Technically Crowley and I are both entirely sexless beings, but his overall presentation in the past year since he saw you last has become largely masculine, yes," Aziraphale said. "But I don't see what that has to do with… oh." Warlock felt his cheeks flush.

Before he could ask what that was about, Shadwell, having regained his steam, interrupted once again. "Demon! You know what this is? Four fingers, one thumb. Now you get out of that boy's head before I blast you to kingdom come." He held his hand out in front of him in a mock gun configuration and pointed it at Warlock.

"That's the trouble, Mr. Shadwell. Kingdom come. It's going to," Madame Tracy explained. She walked over to the kettle, so she could pour a cup for Mr. Shadwell as well. "Mr. Aziraphale and Warlock have just been explaining it."

"Warlock!" Shadwell cried. "Warlock! You foul temptress. Do you mean to tell me you've invited a warlock and his demon master in right under my own roof?"

"It is my flat, Mr. Shadwell," Madame Tracy reminded him.

"And as I tried to tell you before, I am not a demon," Aziraphale said. "I am an angel of the Lord. And Warlock is just the boy's name. He's not a witch, he's… my ward."

"Oh aye, and I meant to believe that when he's got his familiar right there plain as day," Shadwell said. He pointed at Sister Cat, who was currently batting at the feather toy Warlock was dangling for her. Then he remembered he was meant to be threatening the demon with his hand, and pointed it back at the warlock. "And how many nipples have you got, boy?"

"Mr. Shadwell!" Madame Tracy gasped.

"He is a _child_," Aziraphale said, crossing Warlock's arms protectively.

Shadwell was used to people being off put by that question and so was not deterred. "He's a witch is what he is. And if he isn't, then you won't mind me giving him the pin test."

"Oh very well. In the interest of time, I suppose you can prick his finger. If you must," Aziraphale said, though Warlock's arms did not come uncrossed until Warlock offered his hand himself.

Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell was much more invested in the glory of the cause of the Witchfinder Army than he was making money – he wouldn't be in the Witchfinder Army these days if he wasn't – so the pin he used to prick Warlock's finger was solid steel, not one of the trick retractable ones. Warlock didn't say ouch, but only because as an eleven year old he thought he was too old to be saying ouch over such little things. He did draw his hand back quickly though, and there was a flash of pain in his expression. It was enough that Shadwell judged him to have passed.

"Alright," he said, tucking his pin back into his pocket. "But I've got my eye on you, boy." Shadwell then promptly took his eye off Warlock, allowing Aziraphale the opportunity to discreetly run his thumb over Warlock's pricked finger and heal it.

"Well now that that's settled," Madame Tracy said, handing Mr. Shadwell a fresh mug of tea. She settled gracefully back into her chair. "You were saying about the Apocalypse Mr. Aziraphale?"

So Aziraphale explained again about the Apocalypse and the Antichrist. It worked out rather well as explaining it to Sergeant Shadwell led to him having the idea to have Shadwell take out the Antichrist, which everyone agreed to without too much convincing. Aziraphale thought it was a good idea, or at least an acceptable one, because they were getting down to the wire rather and he didn't see they had any other options left. Shadwell was just excited to be able to take out an actual witch with so many nipples. Madame Tracy was going along with it because Aziraphale had neglected to mention the Antichrist was an eleven year old boy. And Warlock was, despite everyone's best efforts, still a bit American and as such felt the Antichrist was a bad guy and bad guys ought to be shot.

Once that was sorted and a suitable weapon – the Thunder Gun of Witchfinder Colonel Dalrymple – had been found, the five of them, including Sister Cat of course, went out to Madame Tracy's electric scooter.

"Oh," Madame Tracy said, looking down at the scooter which had very clearly designed only to carry one person, maybe two. It certainly wasn't large enough for two adults, one child, one very stuffed messenger bag carrying a kitten, and an over large gun. "This is going to be a problem, isn't it?"

"Well I have to go," Shadwell announced. "I'm the one to kill the witch." He hefted the Thunder Gun for emphasis.

"Warlock, perhaps it's best if you wait here," Madame Tracy suggested.

"Yes, indeed," Aziraphale agreed. "This could get very dangerous, my dear boy, and I would hate for you to get hurt."

Warlock gave Madame Tracy a distinctly unimpressed look. He knew Brother Aziraphale couldn't actually see the look, but he could feel it well enough on Warlock's face. "If I don't go, Brother Aziraphale can't go either."

"Right," Aziraphale said. "Forgot about that. This is a very unusual situation; it's taking some getting used to. Madame Tracy, strictly speaking we don't need-"

"You're not taking my scooter without me," Madame Tracy said. Truthfully, under different circumstances she might have lent it to them, but it was quite out of the question at the moment. As much as she might adore funny old Mr. Shadwell, she was very aware he wouldn't be any use as a guardian to young Warlock. And Mr. Aziraphale might have suited, but at the moment he didn't have his own body, which was bond to be limiting on his abilities to look after a child properly. "Warlock dear, it might help if you leave your things here. I promise they and Sister Cat will be perfectly safe in my flat until we can come back for them."

"No!" Warlock said, clutching his bag to himself as though mortally offended. He was gearing himself up to have a good tantrum about the matter if necessary, but Aziraphale interrupted.

"We don't have time for this," he said sharply. He snapped his fingers and a helmet appeared on Warlock's head. Then he passed his hand over the scooter, and while the three humans would swear that the scooter hadn't changed in the slightest, it was also very obviously large enough to easily accommodate all of them now. He threw Warlock's leg over the scooter, settled the bag in Warlock's lap, and looked at the other two expectantly. "Well, come on now. Let's get a wiggle on."

It took another five minutes to get a proper wiggle on, because Madame Tracy's scooter hadn't been top of the line even before it had gotten frightfully old. But with another miracle from Aziraphale, soon the five of them were flying to Tadfield Airbase, quite literally speaking.


	4. Chapter 4

Sergeant Thomas A. Deisenburger was having a bad day. This may seem like a small thing in the face of the world's imminent ending, but a day isn't suddenly not bad anymore just because it's going to end prematurely. Thomas had known he had gate guard duty today, which at the supremely quiet Tadfield Air Base meant he had been looking forward to a chance to really dig into his new book. But all day long things had kept happening. Not for the most part things he had to do anything about, but things people felt the need to keep interrupting him all day to tell him about. Then there had been the four generals coming in for a surprise inspection that he still felt uneasy about. Given the way the day was going, both his day in particular and everything else going on around the world in general, he wouldn't have been surprised if it turned out the four of them weren't generals at all. Honestly, he wasn't entirely convinced that would be worse than a surprise inspection by four generals anyway. And now there was this.

An electric scooter had pulled up to the gate, carrying a little boy, his kitten, which had squirmed its way out of the boy's bag as soon as they'd come to a stop, and his grandparents. And all of them were acting crazy. Well, not the kitten, the kitten was behaving like a normal kitten, but the three humans seemed like a bunch of weirdos.

The worst of it was he couldn't even heft his gun pointedly to get them to move along. Because the kid seemed like he might actually be crazy, he kept switching voices like he had multiple personality disorder or whatever it was called, and you couldn't menace a mentally ill kid with a gun. And you couldn't menace his grandparents with it either, not when he was standing right there watching.

Thomas held his gun tightly in a way that was not threatening or menacing in the least. "Sir, ma'am, I must respectfully ask you to-"

The sound of Bohemian Rhapsody cut across the air as a car came streaking up to the air base. Well, not a car so much as a flaming hunk of metal with delusions of carhood.

"Nanny Crowley!" Warlock's mouth said, though it came out sounding quite bizarre. That was because the first word, said while Nanny Crowley was still in the car, was in Warlock's voice, while the second word, said after he had gotten out of the car, was in Brother Aziraphale's.

"Hey, Aziraphale! See you found a-" Nanny Crowley paused mid-saunter. This left his hips cocked in what seemed an alarmingly uncomfortable position, though Nanny Crowley didn't seem to notice. He gripped his sunglasses with one hand as though he were going to lower them to get a better look. He didn't, but the implication he might was there. "Is that Warlock? You brought _Warlock_ with you? It's the bloody Apocalypse and you thought, ooo, let's bring the kid along, the End of Days should make a jolly good bonding experience?"

That was not the reaction Warlock had expected or hoped for when he ran into Nanny Crowley again. He'd expected to be just like when Nanny used to come collect him after he'd been playing outside in the garden. He'd be climbing a tree or digging in the dirt looking for Sibling Worms or playing a game of make-believe, and Nanny would walk up to him. She'd say, "There you are, Warlock dear." Then she'd hold out her hand and add, "Come along now." Warlock had expected something just like that, but what he had really hoped for was in between "there you are" and "come along, now" Nanny Crowley would crouch down and give Warlock a tight hug.

Instead Nanny Crowley was angry. Warlock could feel Brother Aziraphale alongside him, nudging and saying, _oh no, he's not angry at you, he's just worried you might get hurt, see?_ But Warlock had heard a lot of pleasant lies about caregivers who didn't care, and with Nanny Crowley glaring at him – really he was glaring at Aziraphale, but under the circumstances, Warlock's confusion is understandable – it was easy to believe that was another lie.

"Excuse me, is this your son?" Sergeant Deisenburger asked.

Nanny Crowley looked up at the man who was still hefting his gun in a not quite menacing way, looked at the closed gate to the air base, and nodded to himself before continuing his saunter. "Yes, they're mine," he said, stopping to squeeze Warlock's shoulder. This sent a trill of happiness through Warlock's body, though neither Brother Aziraphale nor Warlock were entirely sure who it came from. This was primarily because it had actually come from both of them.

"Leave this to me," Nanny Crowley said reassuringly. He approached Sergeant Deisenburger. "Army human, my friend and I have come a long way –"

The gates slid open and four children on bicycles rode past and onto the air base. This thoroughly distracted Sergeant Deisenburger, and might have proved the chance the group needed to sneak onto the air base, had the Bentley not coincidentally chosen that exact moment to explode.

Rather less coincidentally, Sister Cat chose the moment immediately following that moment to worm her way back into Warlock's bag.

Nanny Crowley staggered back toward the car and fell despondently to his knees. "Ninety years and not a scratch, and now look at you."

Brother Aziraphale hurried over as well. "Crowley. He's got a gun. He's pointing it. Do something!" he said.

Sometime between the troupe of bike-riding children and the car exploding, Sergeant Deisenburger's day had gone completely off the rails, and he decided one could point a gun at a mentally ill child, or at the very least at a mentally ill child's grandparents. It's important to remember at this point Sergeant Deisenburger had just had an encounter with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse earlier, not to mention all the Hellish influences permeating the air base at the moment and to not judge poor Thomas too harshly for coming to this conclusion.

"I am having a moment here," Nanny Crowley said.

Brother Aziraphale had more to say to that, but Warlock pushed him aside. He took two hesitant steps closer to Nanny Crowley and said, "I'm sorry about your car, Nanny."

Had it been anyone else on Earth, or in Heaven or Hell or anywhere else in Creation for that matter, Crowley wouldn't have done it. Even if it had been just Aziraphale alone in his own corporation, he wouldn't quite have dared. But because it was Warlock, it didn't even take a thought for Crowley to reach out and pull the boy into his arms.

Aziraphale very quickly and discreetly took control of Warlock's hand, snapping his fingers to send the very high-strung Sergeant Deisenburger somewhere that was hopefully more restful for him. Then Aziraphale stepped back – metaphorically speaking – and allowed Crowley and Warlock their hug.

Crowley had never meant to get attached to Warlock. It didn't do to get too attached to any particular human; they were all just gone too fast. On top of that, Warlock was supposed to have been the Antichrist. Attachment had seemed like a bad idea all around, really. So, given Crowley's spectacular track record of not at all accomplishing what he had intended to, the end result here shouldn't have been surprising.

Crowley clutched Warlock tightly, breathing in the scent of him. He smelt like – well just like Warlock really. It was a scent Crowley knew so well and intimately, he didn't have any other words to describe it. He smelt like Warlock and, just there underneath it all, the faintest whiff of Aziraphale. That proof that the two people that Crowley cared about were alive and here was enough to remind him that deep down underneath it all, he was a bit of an optimist really, and they did still have a world to save.

He gave Warlock one last tight squeeze, then stood up. "Rest in peace. You were a good car," he said, pressing a kiss to the tire iron in his hand. He made one last nod toward the flaming wreckage, then offered his other hand to Warlock. "Come along now, dear. We've got an Armageddon to avert."

There were more soldiers after that, but the six of them, including Sister Cat, eventually managed to get their hands on one of the army jeeps. They rode it to the centre of the base, where four children about the same age as Warlock faced off against four beings that might have passed themselves off as human, if the person they were passing themselves off to were deaf, dumb, and blind.

"That's him. The curly one. Shoot him. Save the world," Nanny Crowley said, pointing at the Antichrist. All of Adam Young's natural defences were gone now, such that even Warlock would have been able to pick him out now. Of course, that was only significant if one assumed Warlock wouldn't have always been able to pick him out; the two of them did share a singularly unique connection.

"What? He's just a wee bairn. You cannae-" Shadwell protested.

"Oh, for Heaven's sake. Give me that," Brother Aziraphale said, snatching the Thundergun away from Shadwell. The weapon was too large for Warlock's small body, but Brother Aziraphale gripped it tight and pointed it at the Antichrist.

"You can't just shoot children!" Madame Tracy objected.

That gave Brother Aziraphale pause. "Perhaps we should wait?" he suggested to Nanny Crowley.

"What, till he grows up?" Nanny Crowley asked incredulously. "Shoot him, Aziraphale!" Brother Aziraphale nodded and aimed the gun.

Warlock didn't say a word. He didn't protest or object or argue. He didn't point out the Antichrist was only a kid like him. He didn't call attention to the fact the Antichrist didn't much look like he was keen on ending the world. He didn't mention the Antichrist, who probably had a nice normal name when Warlock thought about it, looked just like someone Warlock would want to be friends with. He didn't say any of that, because Brother Aziraphale and Nanny Crowley said the Antichrist had to be shot, so he had to be. Simple as that. And Warlock's body was going to be the one to do it. He held his arms steady and ignored the tear rolling down his cheek.

Brother Aziraphale dropped the gun. It clattered to the ground and went off harmlessly in the direction of one of the empty buildings.

"Oh my dear boy, I'm so sorry," Brother Aziraphale said. He wrapped his angelic essence as tightly around Warlock's soul as could be managed.

"Excuse me, why are you two people?" the Antichrist asked

"Ah. Um, long story," Brother Aziraphale said. "If you could just give us a minute-"

"It's not right," the Antichrist interrupted. "You should get out of my friend's body now."

There was a wretching feeling inside Warlock's body, and suddenly the angelic essence wrapped around his soul was gone. It left Warlock feeling lost and bereft and alone. But only for a moment, until Brother Aziraphale, back in his own body again, knelt down and wrapped him in a hug.

Hugs, you remember, are not at all like having one's soul wrapped up lovingly in angelic essence. On the whole, Warlock found hugs were to be preferred.

He gripped Brother Aziraphale's velvet waistcoat and buried his face in his shirt. "I'm sorry," he sniffed. "I couldn't-"

"No, no, no, not at all," Aziraphale said soothingly. "I'm the one who's sorry. I never should have asked that of you. Shhhh, it's alright now."

They stayed like that for a long moment, until Nanny Crowley came up and place a hand on Brother Aziraphale's shoulder. "Angel, Warlock, look," he said. He motioned with his chin, and Brother Aziraphale and Warlock looked up just in time to watch the Antichrist's friend run War through with her own flaming sword.

Brother Aziraphale stood up and they watched as another of the children stabbed Pollution with the sword, and as the third took the sword up against Famine.

"Didn't that used to be your sword?" Nanny Crowley asked.

"I do believe it was," Brother Aziraphale agreed.

"You had a sword?" Warlock asked, eyes wide. He couldn't picture Brother Aziraphale with a sword.

"Oh yes," Brother Aziraphale said. "I was quite good with it. That is, I never actually used it technically, but I was made to be good with it, you understand. I could teach you sometime, if you're interested."

Warlock looked back at the boy and Famine still struggling over the sword. Eventually the dog ran up and pushed Famine onto the sword from behind, making him go up in smoke. "I'd rather not," Warlock said.

"Quite sensible of you," said Brother Aziraphale approvingly.

That left only Death and the Antichrist. Then with one last threat, Death left as well.

"There. You see, Crowley? It's like I've always said –" Brother Aziraphale began, but Nanny Crowley interrupted him.

"Oh, it isn't over. Nothing's over. Both Heaven and Hell still want their war."

But it seemed to Warlock it was over. A woman and her boyfriend came out of one of the buildings, and it turned out they had been in there saving the world too. Brother Aziraphale told a little bit about how he and Nanny Crowley had met; apparently Nanny Crowley had been the snake in the Garden of Eden after all. It all seemed very calm and settled, really. Warlock was about to ask the other two boys their names – he'd only caught Adam's and Pepper's so far – and introduce himself when the other two people appeared.

The first – who Warlock guessed was an angel – was a smarmy git in a grey coat, and the other – who was almost certainly a demon – was an idiot in a sash and a hat in the shape of a fly.

"Lord Beelzebub. What an honour," Nanny Crowley said, bowing pretty sarcastically Warlock thought.

"Crowley, the traitor," Beelzebub said.

"That's not a nice word," said Nanny Crowley.

"All the other words I have for you are worse."

Warlock did not like these people. Beelzebub was being rude to Nanny Crowley, and the angel hadn't said anything yet, but he looked like… well he looked a lot like Thaddeus Dowling, in all the worst sort of ways. Warlock patted his bag comfortingly. Sister Cat stuck her head out of the flap and began growling in the direction of the two.

"Where's the boy?" Beelzebub asked.

Everyone turned to look at Adam. "That one," the angel said. "Adam Young. Hi. Young man, Armageddon must… restart. Right now. A temporary inconvenience cannot get in the way of the greater good."

"As to what it stands in the way of, that has yet to be decided. But the battle must be decided now, boy. That is your destiny. It is written. Now start the war," Beelzebub added.

Up until this point, Warlock had been feeling pretty useless with regards to saving the world. He didn't mind too much, since Brother Aziraphale and Nanny Crowley had been pretty useless too. And to be honest, the Four Horsemen from before had been rather scary, and Adam and his gang had seemed like they had a handle on it anyway, so Warlock wasn't really needed to help. But these two were just an angel and a demon; Warlock wasn't scared of angels and demons. And he knew exactly how to handle unreasonable authority figures.

"Excuse you," Warlock said, barging his way into the conversation. He walked over to stand beside Adam and glared at the two. In his bag, Sister Cat continued to growl. "He already said he doesn't want to destroy the world, and you can't make him. You're not the boss of him."

The angel sputtered a bit. "I am the Archangel Gabriel."

"So?" Adam said, picking up the spirit of the moment from Warlock. "You're not my dad."

"No, but he can easily be fetched," Beelzebub said. "And your father will not be pleased at having to come out here to force you to fulfil your destiny to destroy the world."

"_My_ dad says nobody ought to destroy the world, so I don't see why Adam should have to if he doesn't want to," Warlock said. This would seem a bit of an odd statement to come from Warlock to anybody who knew him. Crowley assumed Warlock was stretching the truth in order to be as obnoxious as possible – he was very proud. Aziraphale was busy scratching his head trying to figure out when Thaddeus Dowling would have said such a thing. The truth is, it was just a slip of the tongue on Warlock's part.

Gabriel laughed derisively. "And why should we care what some human thinks?"

"Yes, little pretender Antichrist," Beelzebub buzzed. "Why should we care what you think?"

Warlock stared at him completely deadpan. "Because I can scream for three hours straight if I don't get my way. Probably longer. I've done it before."

Adam, who was suitably impressed by Warlock's claim, added. "And I can scream with all the tormented cries of the souls of the damned." Warlock was equally as impressed. Both Beelzebub and Gabriel blanched.

Gabriel's expression took on a hard cast, and he leaned in closer. "Now listen here, you little brats-"

Sister Cat hissed and swiped at him, catching a claw in Gabriel's scarf. Things might have gone very badly then had Dog not planted himself firmly in between the two boys and the angel and let out a menacing growl of his own. Hell hounds, even small terrier-like hell hounds, are not the sort of thing angels like to mess with casually, so Gabriel took a few steps back. His scarf stayed with Sister Cat.

"As I was saying, the Great Plan-"

"Stupid Plan," Adam said.

"Rubbish Plan," Warlock agreed.

"The _Great Plan_," Gabriel said loudly, very clearly at the end of his patience, "is the entire reason for the creation of the Earth. That means you can't just refuse to be who you are. Your birth, your destiny, they're part of the Great Plan."

It was at this point Aziraphale decided he'd had enough of Gabriel's bullying. "Um, ahem, excuse me," he said. He walked over and stood behind Warlock, placing one hand of either of the boys' right shoulders. "You keep talking about the Great Plan."

"Aziraphale, maybe you should just keep your mouth shut," Gabriel said. Warlock glared at him and thought he might just start screaming right now after all.

"One thing I'm not clear on," Brother Aziraphale continued. "Is that the Ineffable Plan?"

"The Great Plan! It is written," Beelzebub said. "There shall be a world and it shall last for six thousand years and end in fire and flame."

"Yes, yes. That sounds like the Great Plan," Brother Aziraphale agreed. "Just wondering, is that the Ineffable Plan as well?"

It was at that point realization dawned for Crowley. "You don't know," he said softly. He went to stand next to Aziraphale, behind Adam. He put a hand on Adam's shoulder as well, and since reaching Warlock's other shoulder would mean doing an odd sort of arm cross with Aziraphale, he just rested his other hand on Aziraphale's shoulder. Aziraphale regarded the hand with some surprise, but didn't try to roll it off or protest. "Uh… well, it's be a pity if you'd thought you were doing what the Great Plan said, but you were actually going directly against God's Ineffable Plan. I mean, everyone knows the Great Plan, yeah? But the Ineffable Plan is… well, it's ineffable, isn't it? By definition we can't know it."

"But it is written," Beelzebub said.

Gabriel gave all four of them a deeply affronted look. "God does not play games with the universe."

Crowley glanced down at the two boys in front of him, or, as he was thinking of them at the moment, Exhibit A. "Where have you been?"

The two went off to have a bit of a private conference. Warlock knew how these things went well enough to know that meant they had won, and all was left was for Gabriel and Beelzebub to admit to it. Sure enough, a second later they were walking back over looking very put out.

"Young man," Gabriel said to Adam, "you were put on this Earth for one reason and one reason only. To end it. You're a disobedient little brat, and I hope someone tells your father."

"Oh they will," Beelzebub said. "And your father will not be pleased." The two of them disappeared.

The earth began to shake, and Nanny Crowley fell to the ground, crying out in agony.

"What's happening? I can feel something." Brother Aziraphale said.

"They did it. They told his father. And his Satanic father is not happy," Nanny Crowley said. The ground kept shaking, and everyone kept panicking, and Warlock clung onto Nanny Crowley to try to keep his balance.

Physically, this worked out well. As everyone else was getting jostled around and panicking, Warlock kept a tight grip on Nanny Crowley and managed to stay standing. Emotionally… well, it didn't really help that Nanny Crowley had given up. "This is Satan himself. It isn't about Armageddon. This is personal. We are fucked!"

Warlock clung closer to Nanny Crowley and watched in horror as Brother Aziraphale picked up his sword and held it up in the air like he was going to attack. "Come up with something or…" He looked at Warlock, then at Nanny Crowley, and then lowered the sword. "Or Warlock will die, and I will never talk to you again."

Time stopped. Not that Warlock or any of the humans noticed it stopping. They only noticed it when time started up again, and only then because Nanny Crowley, Brother Aziraphale, and Adam had all moved. Warlock's heart sank just a little when he saw Nanny Crowley and Brother Aziraphale holding hands with Adam. He suddenly remembered Brother Aziraphale and Nanny Crowley talking in his car, and realized that Warlock was the wrong boy, actually.

This is of course factually true in some regards, but completely off the money in others. What Warlock couldn't see about this scene, and what is very important, was the way Crowley and Aziraphale's wings were spread out. They made an imposing defiant gesture, yes, but they were also arranged in such a way that if someone who could see them – for example, Satan, who was popping out of the ground even now – were to stand directly in front of Crowley and Aziraphale, Warlock would be quite shielded from view.

"Where is my son? You? You're my rebellious son? Come here." Satan said.

Adam let go of Crowley and Aziraphale's hands and strode forward. There were any number of factors involved leading to what Adam said next, but there is one thing to keep in mind. Warlock could not see Crowley and Aziraphale's wings because no matter how spiritually receptive he was, he was still entirely human. Adam, however, was not.

"You're not my dad. Dads don't wait until your eleven to say hello, and then turn up to tell you off. If I'm in trouble with my dad, then it won't be you. It's going to be the dad who was there. You're not my dad!"

In spite of Satan's pounding of the ground, to say nothing of the open pit of flame, there was a certain stillness to the air as reality listened in. "You're not my dad. You never were." Adam said. He _pushed_ with all his metaphysical might, and reality decided it rather preferred Adam's way of doing things come to think of it.

Satan vanished in a puff of smoke, to be replaced by a car being driven by a confused and irritated but largely unassuming Englishman. "Would anyone here care to explain to me what exactly is going on?"

There was a silent mutual agreement by everyone there to leave that up to Adam. The other three kids quickly gathered up their bikes and rode away, lest they get caught in a parental lecture by proxy, and the four human adults huddled together and did their best to look like they had nothing to do with anything that had been happening here. Nanny Crowley and Brother Aziraphale turned around to look at Warlock.

"Are you alright?" Nanny Crowley asked, soft and just a little Scottish.

Warlock was feeling very overwhelmed, to be honest. Saving the world had turned out to be a lot _more_ than he expected. Gabriel and Beelzebub hadn't bothered him particularly, but Satan, the actual literal devil, was a lot for an eleven year old to handle. And he knew he'd be having nightmares about Death and its wings of void and night for a long time. He wasn't sure how to express all that, so he just opened his mouth and said the first thing that came out. "He smelled like poo."

There was a brief, breathless moment of silence, then Nanny Crowley burst out laughing. "That's my little hellspawn," he said, vigorously tousling Warlock's hair.

"He did smell rather unpleasant, didn't he?" Brother Aziraphale agreed through his chuckles.

Warlock ducked his head and smiled. The niggling doubtful feeling that had wormed its way into his gut when he'd seen Nanny Crowley and Brother Aziraphale holding Adam's hands faded away and vanished.

"Excuse me." Adam was standing there, looking vaguely uncertain. "I wanted to say thanks for your help before." All three of them had helped Adam some in their own way, but it was clear he was mostly talking to Warlock.

"You're welcome. Thanks for, you know, not wanting to destroy the world," Warlock replied. Then he decided to go ahead and ask the question that had been bothering him since Adam had put Brother Aziraphale back in his own body. "You said I was your friend; have we met before?"

"Yeah. 'Cept you probably don't remember. We were real little," Adam said. "It was at the hospital. My crib got wheeled into the room with my mum, and you were already there in your crib. We were sat there next to each other for a little while before they wheeled you out."

"Oh," Warlock said. He looked over at Mr. Young, who was presently loading Adam's bike up on a bike rack that hadn't been on his car when he'd set out. It stood to reason, Warlock thought, that if everyone had thought Warlock was supposed to be Adam, then that meant Adam was actually supposed to be Warlock.

"You don't mind that I fixed things this way, do you? Only, I don't think I can change it all again," Adam said. For quite possibly the very first time in his life, Adam Young felt distinctly guilty. All his life, the world had adjusted itself to accommodate Adam's desires, and he had never seen anything particularly wrong with that. He'd made it so Arthur and Deirdre Young had always been his parents, because that's the way he wanted things to be. He'd never feel bad about taking what he wanted before – with the obvious exception of earlier that day, but he'd been out of his right mind anyway so Adam didn't really think that counted. But now he was standing face-to-face with the boy who was meant to have the things Adam had taken, the boy who had been Adam's first friend no less, and it was not a good feeling.

Warlock looked at Mr. Young a moment longer, then shook his head. "No. It's like you told… that other guy from before, he's not really my dad. I know it's not his fault he wasn't there, be he still wasn't."

Warlock could admit he wanted a life like Adam's. He wanted to live in a nice little house in a nice little town in the English countryside. He wanted to have a group of friends that he could run around and explore and play games with. He wanted to have parents that cared and listened even when he wasn't screaming. He even wanted parents that would yell at him and lecture him, but only because he'd run off on his own to stop the Apocalypse and they had been worried about him. Warlock wanted a life like Adam's, but that didn't mean he wanted Adam's life.

"Good," Adam said, his guilt freely dissipating now that it had been given leave to. "But you'll still come visit, right? You can get to know my mum and dad, and me, Pepper, Wensley, and Brian can show you around Hogback Wood, and you can tell us about all the different ice cream flavours they have in America. Plus Dog already likes your cat."

Adam pointed to where Dog was standing with his forelegs and head lowered, his hindquarters raised, and his tail wagging madly. Sister Cat regarded him bemusedly, then reached out to lightly bop him on the snout. When that failed to garner a reaction beyond a joyful yip and more tail wagging, she leaned in to sniff his nose. From there she sniffed up alongside his snout and eventually reached the side of his face, where she began grooming him under one eye.

"Your dog's named Dog?" Warlock asked. "My cat's name is Sister Cat."

"That's a good name for a cat," Adam said approvingly. "So, you'll come?"

"If I'm allowed to," Warlock said.

"I don't see why you wouldn't be," said Adam with the easy confidence of someone who spent his life having the world adjust itself to accommodate his desires.

"Adam!" Mr. Young called. "Come along now. You'll see Warlock again on Wednesday." Adam shot Warlock on last triumphant see-I-told-you-so grin, then ran off to join his dad.

While Warlock and Adam had been talking, Brother Aziraphale and Nanny Crowley had gone off to talk to the other adults about how they were going to get everyone off the air base and back home. It was a problem made rather more difficult by the presence of one more body and one less car than they'd had when they'd started and rather more urgent by the presence of a lot of soldiers that probably weren't going to be sleeping much longer.

Warlock glanced over at them, then took a detour to Gabriel's scarf, which was still lying on the ground. He picked it up and offered it to Sister Cat, who regarded it warily. "It's your trophy. For vanquishing your foe," he explained to her. Sister Cat sniffed the scarf, then gently took it in her mouth. Warlock bundled Sister Cat up, scarf and all, and stuck her back in his bag. Then he trotted off to catch up with Nanny Crowley and Brother Aziraphale. It had been a very long day, and he was ready to go home.

Where that was, exactly, remained to be seen.


	5. Chapter 5

In the end Brother Aziraphale placed another miracle on the scooter so it would fly Madame Tracy and Shadwell back to London. Then he, Nanny Crowley, Warlock, and Sister Cat got a ride back into Tadfield with Newt and Anathema. No one was more surprised than Newt that all four of them fit in the back seat of Dick Turpin, save perhaps Dick Turpin itself.

Anathema still wasn't entirely sure of the two who'd stolen her book, but there was something bonding in the experience of facing down the Apocalypse together, besides which their son – as she assumed Warlock to be – was completely innocent, so she invited them over to Jasmine Cottage for dinner. They accepted that invitation, but declined the follow-up invitation to stay the night to Anathema's relief. And to Newt's as well when he realized the reason a similar invitation hadn't been extended to him was because his continued presence at Jasmine Cottage was expected and required.

The evening found the three of them sitting on the bench at the bus stop, Warlock pleasantly full, and Nanny Crowley and Brother Aziraphale perhaps a little tipsier than they felt they ought to be, but not as drunk as they'd probably like to be. Sister Cat wasn't on the bench at all, instead exploring under and around the bench, still attached to her leash attached to Warlock's bag. It was not entirely true Warlock was on the bench either: he had dozed off so close to Nanny Crowley it was more accurate to say he was in his lap.

Warlock was in that pleasant in between state where he was awake enough to be vaguely aware of what was going on around him, but asleep enough not to be concerned about any of it. He could hear the murmur of Brother Aziraphale and Nanny Crowley's voices as well as the occasional rustle of Sister Cat's explorations, and could feel Nanny Crowley's arm wrapped around him; he couldn't think of anything in the world that he should be concerned about.

"I suppose I should get him to drop me off at the bookshop," Brother Aziraphale said. The memory of seeing the shop up in flames was enough to start to tug Warlock from his sleep.

"It burned down, remember?" Nanny Crowley said. He hesitated for a moment, then added, "You can stay at my place, if you like."

"I don't think my side would like that," Brother Aziraphale answered.

"You don't have a side anymore. Neither of us do. We're on our own side. Like Agnes said, we're going to have to choose our faces wisely," said Nanny Crowley.

"Me too," Warlock added sleepily.

"Course you're on our side too, love," Nanny Crowley agreed.

Warlock shook his head against Nanny Crowley's chest. "I mean I want to stay at your place too."

"Oh, my dear," Brother Aziraphale said. Warlock knew that tone. It was the tone that said Brother Aziraphale was going to feel bad about it, but he was going to tell him no. Warlock clutched closer onto Nanny Crowley.

Nanny Crowley squeezed Warlock back. "The Dowlings were in the Middle East earlier today. I doubt they'll be back home until tomorrow at the earliest. You want to force him to spend the night alone in that big house after a day like today?"

"Oh goodness, I forgot all about that. In that case of course he'll have to come home with us," Brother Aziraphale said.

Nanny Crowley's hand spasmed a little against Warlock's back. Warlock wrote it off as a random twitch, largely because he didn't understand the significance of Brother Aziraphale's casual declaration. And that was largely because Warlock was still under the arguably correct impression that Brother Aziraphale and Nanny Crowley were basically married and the definitely incorrect assumption that both of them were aware of that fact.

Whether it was a random twitch or a suppressed sign of overwhelming emotion, Nanny Crowley recovered from it very quickly. "C'mon hellspawn, time to get up. The bus driver isn't going to wait forever. Well, he would, but that's beside the point."

Warlock couldn't think of anything that sounded worse at that point than having to get up. He grabbed onto Nanny Crowley's shirt tighter and burrowed into his chest. Nanny Crowley chuckled. "You really are a brat sometimes," he said. Warlock didn't mind though because while he was saying it, he was also shifting his hold on Warlock so he could pick him up and carry him.

Warlock moved his arms to wrap one around Nanny Crowley's neck and the other to wave behind Nanny Crowley in the general direction of the bench. Brother Aziraphale touched him on the shoulder. "I've got it dear, and Sister Cat." Warlock hummed in acknowledgement, wrapping his other arm around Nanny Crowley's neck as well and dropping his head against his shoulder.

Nanny Crowley settled the two of them into one of the bus seats with Warlock now undebatably in his lap. Brother Aziraphale sat down next to Nanny Crowley, placing Sister Cat in his own lap and Warlock's bag on the ground. There shouldn't have been near enough space for all that, but the bus seat was more than happy to finally have a chance to be accommodating.

When they arrived at Mayfair Nanny Crowley coaxed Warlock into waking up enough to walk himself up to the flat. There was a second when the four of them first walked in the door when they all stood there silently, none of them sure what was supposed to come next.

Warlock broke the moment. "Bathroom, Nanny?"

"Right, of course. Just through there, first door on the left," Nanny Crowley said, pointing.

"And then how about a nice mug of cocoa before bed?" Brother Aziraphale said.

"Yeah, thanks," Warlock said with a smile. He blinked sleepily a few times before another thought occurred to him. "Wait," he said, stopping Brother Aziraphale on his way to the kitchen. He took Sister Cat from him, carefully removed her harness, then stuck harness and leash back in his bag. Only then, with Sister Cat still in his arms, did he stumble off to the bathroom.

He paused in the doorway for a second, pleasantly surprised. There was a litter box in the corner of the bathroom, identical to the one Warlock had at home for Sister Cat. He assumed Nanny Crowley must have miracled it up for her. The reality was the odds of Crowley even being aware of litter boxes as a thing that pet cats needed to have in general were not great, and he certainly wasn't behind its appearance in this instance. For her part Sister Cat didn't much care how it got there, only that it was there for her use.

When Warlock was washing his hands he noticed in addition to the litter box all his same toiletries from home were laying out on the bathroom counter. He eyed the toothbrush and toothpaste warily, then finally squeezed the most miniscule amount of toothpaste possible on the brush and brushed his teeth with it. That way it probably wouldn't affect the taste of the cocoa, and he could honestly tell Nanny Crowley he had brushed his teeth with toothpaste, so wouldn't have to come back to brush them afterward.

In the kitchen Brother Aziraphale and Nanny Crowley were already drinking from their own mugs – cocoa with mini marshmallows for Aziraphale and black coffee for Crowley – and a another mug of cocoa, this one piled high with whipped cream, was waiting for Warlock on the counter. He pulled himself up into one of the chairs and sat, his legs idly kicking at the air. His cocoa was already at the perfect temperature with the perfect rich chocolatey flavour and the perfect ratio of cocoa to whipped cream; Brother Aziraphale always made the best cocoa. Warlock took a sip then asked Nanny Crowley, "So you really were the serpent in the Garden of Eden?"

Nanny Crowley chuckled and swiped the spot of whipped cream on Warlock's nose off with his thumb. "Yeah, I really was." He and Brother Aziraphale told him the story, then a lot more stories about their years on Earth. Only the happy stories and the funny ones and the ones that had been slightly embarrassing at the time, but had worked out okay in the end. Even sticking to just those, six thousand years left a lot of stories to tell. Given it had already been late when they got back to the flat, before they knew it, it had gotten to be very, very late indeed.

"I knew dinosaurs weren't real," Warlock crowed triumphantly, though truthfully it sounded rather more like a tired mumble. He yawned hugely. "'S just a dumb joke."

"Alright, time to go to sleep. It's way past your bedtime," Nanny Crowley said. Brother Aziraphale plucked the long empty mug out of Warlock's hands and took it to the sink while Nanny Crowley grabbed Warlock by the shoulders and started propelling him back down the hallway. "You can use my bed; I won't be sleeping tonight anyway…"

Nanny Crowley trailed off as he stopped them dead in front of a strange door. Technically the door itself wasn't strange, it was a fairly ordinary white wooden interior door. What made it strange was while it was normal, the rest of the doors really were strange; it didn't match any of them at all. It looked like nothing so much as the door to Warlock's bedroom. That was probably why as Nanny Crowley was still eyeing it cautiously, the sleep-addled Warlock simply reached forward and opened it.

As soon as the door was opened it became clear the door didn't just look like the one to Warlock's bedroom; it was the door to Warlock's bedroom. The room was exact down to every last detail. The mess looked just the same as the one Warlock had left when he'd set out earlier that day, and as he inspected the room he found the only things missing were the ones currently in his bag. It looked less like a copy and more like someone had picked Warlock's room up and transplanted it onto Nanny Crowley's flat.

"Oh Crowley, this is lovely. What a thoughtful gesture," Brother Aziraphale said from the doorway.

"Wasn't me, angel. I'm guessing Adam was up to more than we realized."

Warlock made a strangled noise as he stared at his desk. "Huh," Nanny Crowley said, leaning in to look too. "That's different."

Sitting on Warlock's desk was a certificate he'd gone two years ago for coming in first in a math competition at school. The certificate still looked largely the same, it was still for first place in the same competition at the same school, but the name on it was different. The winner of this particular award was "Warlock Fell-Crowley."

"I suppose this means we don't need to worry about taking Warlock back to the Dowlings tomorrow," Brother Aziraphale observed.

Normally Warlock would be embarrassed by how emotional he'd been that day. Crying and clinging and being carried around like he was a little kid. Normally. But today had been an extremely long day after a very long year, and Warlock was tired and overwrought enough to realize none of that was embarrassing in the slightest.

Warlock turned around and flung himself at Nanny Crowley. He gripped tight around his waist, buried his face in his shirt, and sobbed with joy and relief.

"There, there," Nanny Crowley crooned. He pet Warlock's hair and rubbed his back. "Everything's going to be just fine."

"I think he might just be tired," Brother Aziraphale said in an undertone to Nanny Crowley. Warlock wanted to protest he wasn't tired at all, he was just so happy, but he didn't want to pull away from Nanny Crowley to say it.

Brother Aziraphale knelt down, and this time Warlock did let himself get pulled away, but only so Brother Aziraphale could pick him up and carry him to bed. Warlock wrapped himself tightly around Brother Aziraphale and sniffled into the crook of his neck. Warlock's clothing changed into a t-shirt and pants – a style of pyjamas Crowley might wear – in white and sky blue – colours Aziraphale preferred. The bedding obligingly pulled itself back so Brother Aziraphale could tuck him in complete with a kiss on the forehead. "Goodnight, love."

When Brother Aziraphale stood and began to move away, Warlock's hand shot out from under the covers to grab his wrist. "Stay. Please." His voice was hoarse with sleep and crying and shaky with fear. Warlock had been struck with an utter certainty that if he went to sleep now he'd wake up and find that everything from his birthday on had only been a dream.

"Of course," Brother Aziraphale said, sitting down on the edge of the bed and giving Warlock a pat on the leg through his blankets. Sister Cat clambered up on the bed as well and gave Warlock's tear-stained face a few licks before curling up on the pillow next to him. Nanny Crowley sat in her chair and sang Warlock's favourite lullaby – though the words were a little different than he remembered – until Warlock drifted off to sleep.

Aziraphale and Crowley spent the rest of the night in Warlock's room discussing the next day in low voices. The likely retaliations of Heaven and Hell, Agnes Nutter's last prophecy, and most importantly how they were going to care for the young boy they had suddenly acquired. The accuracy of the word suddenly here is somewhat debatable, but it was the word the two of them used. There also was a conversation as to what exactly was meant by "our side" and if it might not be implying the same thing that was implied by Warlock's new last name. It's a conversation they perhaps should have had a long time ago, but it's also a conversation they couldn't really have until this moment when they were finally nearly free. At any rate, it certainly didn't bother Warlock to wake up to find Nanny Crowley had migrated in the night from her chair to sitting on the bed at Brother Aziraphale's side.

The morning after the world almost ended but didn't, an Aziraphale-shaped being left the flat to return to the restored bookshop. Early that afternoon a Crowley-shaped being took Warlock and Sister Cat to St. James Park, where Warlock and Sister Cat were left with the ducks, a cell phone, and strict instructions to call the Youngs and Adam for help if no one had returned by three that afternoon. Shortly after that the Aziraphale-shaped being and the Crowley-shaped being were kidnapped by Heaven and Hell respectively, and shortly after that the two were returned to St. James Park with a promise they would be left alone.

Aziraphale and Crowley, now back in their proper bodies, collected Warlock and Sister Cat and the four of them went to the Ritz for lunch.


	6. Chapter 6

Five days after Armageddon ignobly fizzled out before it really got started, Warlock will cautiously approach Aziraphale while he's cooking dinner. Eyes downcast, he will explain how he never read the letter Aziraphale left, how he tore it up and threw it in the fire. Aziraphale will tousle his hair and tell him not to worry about it. The letter was just to say goodbye and that they'd be back soon enough. Even if things didn't quite turn out the way they had thought they would what with the whole Antichrist mix up, here they all are together again, so it all worked out.

Three days after that Warlock will wake up screaming from a nightmare, calling out for his mum and dad. Crowley and Aziraphale will burst in the room, uncertain of what to do but entirely willing to forcibly relocate the Dowlings to the flat if necessary. Instead Warlock will leap out of bed and latch on to Crowley, sobbing and calling him mum. The following morning Warlock will be fully prepared to be embarrassed by his scene the night before, until he comes across Crowley drinking from a mug reading "World's Best Mom." From that point forward Crowley will be mum and Aziraphale will be dad. Some people will give a side-eye at a male-presenting mum, which Warlock and Crowley will deal with by making it clear their the weird ones for thinking it's weird.

The day before the start of autumn term the four of them will move to a house in South Downs. The new house will have a study for Aziraphale, a greenhouse for Crowley, a game room for Warlock and Sister Cat, and a big yard for all of them. Warlock will have a little trouble adjusting to his new school, but before too long he'll have his own group of friends he gets along with much better than anyone at his old school.

Despite his new friends, Warlock will remain close to the Them as well. Things will change and grow as they get older, but frequent visits between South Downs and Tadfield will ensure their friendships survive.

Sister Cat and Dog will become best friends. Frequently Dog will be found in South Downs or Sister Cat in Tadfield even without their people accompanying them. Their owners will choose not to question this, in the same way they will choose not to question the orange sash that looks suspiciously like the one Beelzebub wears that eventually joins Gabriel's grey scarf lining Sister Cat's bed.

When Warlock is fifteen he'll enter a rebellious phase. It will last two weeks. A rebellious phase is hard to maintain when your mum is egging you on the entire time.

As he grows Warlock will display a continuous knack for maths, and will eventually develop a love for sociology. These topics fall far outside the realm of what Aziraphale and Crowley are interested in; they like humans but not the analytical scientific study method of sociology and maths is, well, maths. As much as they would have liked Warlock to be interested in botany or astrology or literature or history, they will continue to be supportive of his pursuits, often to an embarrassing degree.

While Warlock is in his second year in university Aziraphale and Crowley will call him up to tell him they will be getting married that next summer. Warlock will dryly comment it's about time, and he'd been beginning to suspect the two of them of running off and eloping without telling him. Aziraphale will win the coin flip to have Warlock as his best man, and Adam will be good-naturedly amused about being second pick. Warlock will cuff him on the arm and say, "Story of your life, huh?"

Warlock will fall backwards into politics. It's not a subject he's interested in aside from the vague connection to sociology, but that's not why he'll choose to pursue it. He'll pursue it because he'll still remember being eleven and helpless against War and Famine and Pollution. He hadn't helped save the world back then, not really, but he'll refuse to spend the rest of his life helpless.

There will be various romantic relationships over the years. Warlock's heart will get broken a time or two, but more often it'll be him walking away, sometimes from relationships that seem very promising. He'll explain he's looking for love like what his parents have or nothing at all. Aziraphale and Crowley support this. Most other people think he's being sweet but naïve. While they're are busy rolling their eyes at his high standards, Warlock will find that perfect someone, and they will be more than worth the wait.

When they have kids, Warlock will be determined to never let his work get in the way of his family. It still will occasionally, but Warlock will always be there for them when they need him, and often even when they don't. At night he'll tuck his kids into bed and tell them one day they'll have the power to crush the world beneath their boot heel, but they mustn't do that, because the world is a beautiful place and all life deserves to be cherished.

When Warlock is 36 and Sister Cat is 25 – much older than any cat has any right to expect to be – she will pass away. Warlock will be grown enough by then to know it's not embarrassing in the least to throw himself on his mum's lap and sob with loss. Afterward his dad will make him a mug of hot cocoa piled with whipped cream, and the three of them will quietly share their fondest memories of her. And, in a few months, Warlock will make room in his heart for Brother Cat.

Because that is what Warlock does; he _loves_. Warlock will love and sometimes he'll lose, but he will always come back to love. He will wring every last bit out of every moment of life. He will live each day to the fullest, content in the knowledge he is loved unconditionally, irrevocably, eternally and knowing that he and his children and his grandchildren and all his descendants to the very bitter end will always have a guardian angel and demon looking over their shoulders.

But that's all yet to come. Today is Wednesday, four days after the Apocalypse that wasn't. It is a nice day. All the days since the world nearly ended but didn't have been nice. It's as if the Earth, knowing what could have happened, has decided to take a bit of a breather for a while.

Crowley, Aziraphale, Warlock, and Sister Cat are all in the Bentley riding toward Tadfield. They have plans with the Youngs that night for a belated family birthday dinner for Adam and Warlock. Arthur and Deidre are under the impression Adam and Warlock are cousins, and they never quite get around to questioning how that could be possible when neither of them are related to either Crowley or Aziraphale.

They have other plans for before dinner as well. Warlock and Sister Cat are meeting up with the Them, including Dog, to get a tour of all the best parts of Hogback Woods and Tadfield. Warlock has his BMX bike sitting on the bike rack attached the back of the Bentley. The bike rack has tartan straps. Aziraphale and Crowley will be spending some of that time visiting with Anathema and Newt in Jasmine cottage, but they plan to spend time with the children too.

Aziraphale is currently turned around in his seat talking to Warlock. Crowley is ostensibly sitting forward with his eyes on the road, but truthfully he's glancing at Warlock in the rear view mirror far more often than would be advisable in any car that wasn't more or less capable of driving itself when it needs to. Warlock's eyes are sparkling with excitement as he talks about getting to try out the tire swing. He gestures emphatically, but is mindful not to disturb Sister Cat curled up in his lap. There's a picnic basket on the seat beside him, a tartan blanket sticking out of the top. Stretched above them is a vast expanse of clear blue sky.

God smiles to Herself as She slides the last puzzle piece into the right space with a satisfying _shunk_.


End file.
